Laid Bare
by LaylaBinx
Summary: So there they were: still naked, still drunk, still tied up. If this was supposed to be some kind of hazing ritual it had ceased to be entertaining hours ago. Margo and Eliot bare themselves to each other during their Trial; it's not a happy experience. (Trigger warnings included in Author's Note)
**Ugh, I've become unrepentant Magicians trash. It was inevitable; this damn fandom sucked me in and now it won't let go. This is my first foray into the Magicians' world so please be gentle! This is kind of a tag to Impractical Applications but it's set before the series. I kind of took the meaning of the trial to be baring a deeply personal truth rather than a driving one; more like what led them on the path to Brakebills and how they got here. Hopefully it's not too terrible!**

 **A/N: Okay guys, this story contains a lot of triggery elements so please be careful and read at your own discretion. I don't want to offend or upset anyone so if you see any of the following topics/themes that might be tough for you to read about, please turn back.**

 **Trigger warnings include: mentions of canonical gay bashing, drinking, drugs, depression, underage sex, suicidal thoughts, suicidal intentions. Once again, please turn back now if any of these things will upset you.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing! =/**

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"Not my worst Thursday night."

"Mine either."

"I wonder what that says about us on a psychological level?"

"Probably something profound and deeply troubling that I'm far too drunk to deal with at the moment."

"Cheers to that."

They're naked, drunk, and shivering on the wide expanse of the lawn, marginally covered by the few clumps of bushes to their back. There's a stone bench behind them but they had unanimously decided not to sit on it and chose to lean their backs against it instead, bare legs stretched out in front of them and cold stone digging into their spines. It's late, close to 11:20, and heavy, dark clouds fill the sky overhead, threatening rain by the end of the night. In spite of the warm, humid day earlier, the night had turned cool and windy, the breeze cutting across the lawn and rustling the bushes behind them. Had they not been mostly tanked the cold probably would have bothered them a lot more.

It would have been easy enough to just give up on the last trial and head back to the Cottage. Hell, between the two of them they should be powerful enough to fake it and just hope for the best. But they don't. For some stupid reason they're still sitting out here naked with rope around their wrists like a half-assed, failed bondage session.

"You really think they'll kick us out if we fail this last trial?" Margo asks with no particular interest, snagging the bottle of scotch from Eliot's slack hand and taking a swig. She has a stripe of white paint across her forehead and Eliot has two matching streaks across his collarbones. It looks like they had tried to do some kind of body painting and gave up.

Eliot shrugs one shoulder and lets out a sigh. "Who knows? No one ever talks about the last trial; apparently it's suicideally bad form to bring it up to any of the upperclassman." He makes some kind of gesture with one bound hand, half dismissive and half flailing, and lets it fall back across his lap.

"Well, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of getting kicked out," Margo mutters as she passes the bottle of scotch back to him, her words slurring a little around the edges. "They could have at least given us a clue."

"And what kind of clue would they have given us?" Eliot asks, taking the bottle between his tied hands and tilting it back and forth slowly, watching the amber liquor inside slide up and down the glass walls. "We're supposed to reveal our "utmost truth" and bare ourselves until we we transcendence."

"Yeah, well, we're running out of time and I'm running out of truths," Margo snaps back a little irritably, slumping against the leg of the bench and tilting her head back against the stone seat.

They had passed the first two trials well enough earlier in the day and found themselves facing the last with only a handful of the other First Years who had started out with them that morning. There might have been eight all together, nine if Leslie Holloway ever found her way out of the woods, and they were all left to pair up for the final trial.

None of them knew what the third trial was for and no one would tell them anything other than that they were to bare themselves and their "utmost truth" to one another, an act that would lead them to some kind of transcendence. It was like the lamest game of Truth or Dare in the world where the only option was Truth. It sounded like a load of bullshit, to be honest.

The only instructions they were given were for the knots and the warning that they had until midnight to achieve their respective superiorities or else they would fail. And that was it; there were no other warnings or suggestions or hints. Do it or fail, those were the options.

The fact that Eliot and Margo ended up paired together came as no surprise to either of them although they hadn't expressly sought each other out. Eliot found Margo strolling across the lawn with a bottle of dark (and more than likely obscenely expensive) red wine she had liberated from one of the cellars and Margo found Eliot leaning lazily against a beech tree clutching a bottle of aged scotch the color of molten amber in one hand. It was fate.

Being the only two First Year Physical Kids to end up in the Cottage, they had naturally gravitated toward one another throughout the semester. There was an unspoken kind of solidarity to it, an effort to seek each other out and stay close because they were the only two of their species. There were other Physical Kids, yes, but they were Fourth and Fifth Years and they had their own friends and cliques and goals so it only made sense for them to stay close to what they had.

Margo put up with Eliot's lofty, pretentious airs and Eliot accepted Margo's dramatics in stride. They complimented each other in a very unusual way and, much to their surprise, they found themselves to be marginally better when the other was around. They were quickly becoming very close friends and the final trial was doing its best to drive that final nail into the lid.

They had been out here for nearly two hours, getting increasingly drunk and swapping stories about their respective childhoods in an effort to find their ultimate truth and eventually reach whatever kind of transcendence they were supposed to be aiming for. It wasn't working; not that they could tell at least. The ropes were still secured around their wrists and showed no signs of loosening.

"I'm pretty sure my ass is numb," Margo mutters after another moment of silence passes, shifting just a little as if she's testing the theory for herself. "Yep, totally numb."

The few remaining First Years who made it to the final trial weren't specifically told to get naked but they weren't told _not to_ either; it was just kind of universally accepted that everyone would strip down and literally bare themselves in front of their partner for the final trial. A few of the others had seemed super uncomfortable with the idea, blushing and shuffling and looking anywhere but their naked classmate directly in front of them.

There had been no such qualms for the two Physical Kids; Margo didn't care and Eliot was gay so it didn't matter. A body was a body. Except that both bodies had now been sitting completely nude for the better part of the evening and it was starting to get cold.

Margo frowns and draws her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on top of them. It was an awkward position, what with both wrists still firmly tied together, but she manages to pull it off. Eliot remains stretched out beside her, long legs crossed at the ankles and pale in the darkness. His wrists are still bound as well and he has both hands hanging loosely in his lap, covering his dignity but not through any particular effort.

It had quickly become apparent that their utmost truth, whatever it was, would not be something immediately obvious. They had started vanilla-enough, discussing favorite colors, books, hobbies, etc. The bottle of wine was gone within the first half hour. When the first round of truths didn't produce the desired effect, they moved into more personal territory: family, relationships, personal mistakes. The bottle of scotch was opened and set in the grass between them. They didn't have glasses and it didn't matter; if they were going to be baring themselves to one another then sharing a bottle seemed to be the least of their concerns.

Margo told Eliot about her childhood and the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood she grew up in. She told him about her two parents who couldn't stand each other but stayed together for financial purposes. She told him about the numerous affairs between the two of them, both secret and open, and how it wasn't uncommon to come home and find a strange car parked outside and underwear strewn across the floor in the hallway.

She told him about her own string of failed relationships and how she wasn't exactly picky about who ended up in bed with her. She told him about losing her virginity when she was fourteen and getting into drugs when she was fifteen. She told him about sleeping with a married teacher when she was a freshman and then sleeping with the head cheerleader when she was a sophomore. She told him everything she could think of and the knots still remained tight and unaffected.

In return, Eliot told her about growing up in Oregon with his overly religious mother and alcoholic father. He told her about how he had been publicly outed when he was in middle school subsequently got the absolute shit beaten out of him on a near daily basis because of it. He told her how his father threatened to disown him and how his mother had unceremoniously tossed him into an Ultra-Christian camp program that would help him "pray the gay away."

He told her how he faked it after coming home and ended up 'dating' a pretty girl named Samantha Malone through most of high school. He told her that Samantha made the perfect beard in the end; she was happy to cover for him in front of his overly critical parents and he provided decent excuses for her whenever she snuck into the next county to visit her girlfriend in secret. He told her that secretly he was jealous because one night Samantha and Emily (he thought that was her name at least) ran away together and lived happily ever after while he was left to deal with homophobic classmates and intolerant parents. He told her all about his equally shitty childhood and his hands were still tied together.

So there they were: still naked, still drunk, still tied up. If this was supposed to be some kind of hazing ritual it had ceased to be entertaining hours ago. Eliot sighs and copies Margo's example, tilting his head back against the stone bench and looking up at the slate-grey sky. He takes a swig from the whiskey bottle and sets it back in the grass between them, keeping cork between his two bound hands and rolling it back and forth in his palms. He concentrates for a second (a feat which is a lot harder to accomplish in his inebriated state) and the cork hovers a few inches above his palm, spinning in a slow, lazy circle like it's found orbit. He sighs again and closes his eyes.

"Did I ever tell you how I found out about my powers?" he asks, suddenly coming to the realization that for as much time as he and Margo spent together, he never once told her how he discovered his abilities.

Margo tilts her head to the side so she's looking at him. She frowns, squints, and frowns again. "I don't believe you have."

Eliot levitates the cork again and causes it to spin a little higher than before. "I was fourteen," he begins, glancing at her from the corner of his eye before continuing. "I was walking home from school one day and there was this kid, Logan Kinnear, that I went to school with...a real asshole, this guy. Of all the gay-bashers I had through middle school and high school, he was the worst. It was like he made it his mission to seek me out and beat the shit out of me at every opportunity. Maybe he had a crush on me or something."

Eliot shrugs one shoulder and the cork drops out of its orbit and lands on his bare leg. "Whatever it was, Logan was the worst. He broke my nose a couple times, knocked out some teeth. I'm pretty sure he cracked a rib or two once."

"He sounds like a prick," Margo grumbles sullenly. She not sure if it's because she's angry about what happened to Eliot or because it's cold and this test is stupid. Probably both.

Eliot nods in agreement. "Oh, he was. He absolutely was." He hesitates, debating whether or not he should tell her everything about the story. He'd never told anyone before, never trusted anyone enough before. It was his dark and dirty little secret, the skeleton in his closet that took up the whole damn space. He sighs and figures he can blame it on the alcohol.

"Anyway, I was walking home one day and he saw me. I knew he saw me. He was on the other side of the street and he called me out. I knew it was coming." He chuckles but the sound is dry and crackling like dead twigs. "He went to cross the street and there was this bus coming. It was far enough away, he had plenty of time to cross, but something happened. I didn't know what it was at the time but it was like everything slowed down...slow motion to the point of a freeze frame."

Another cold breeze sweeps across the lawn but Eliot isn't cold anymore; he barely feels anything at all. "He was walking toward me and I was watching that bus. I kept thinking that maybe if it was just a little bit faster, a little bit closer…" he trails off with a sigh. "I don't know if I wanted it to kill him or hurt him or just scare him away. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. But then the bus was there, faster and closer than it had been a second before, and it slammed into him and dragged him about thirty feet before it stopped."

Margo sits up a little, her expression unreadable. She doesn't appear upset or shocked by Eliot's confession; if anything she looks sympathetic.

"There was a lot of screaming, people were panicking," Eliot continues, refusing to meet her gaze until he's finished. "The bus driver tumbled out of the bus and threw up in a gutter. Logan was already dead; there wasn't anything anyone could do. The impact had been strong enough to knock his shoes off his feet which would have been funny if it wasn't so horrible."

"Everyone was asking what happened, _how_ it happened, and the only thing I could think of was that I had bloodstains on my shirt and the fabric was ruined." Eliot offers a wan, crooked little smile and shakes his head. "I didn't think it was me, not at first. Why would I? That kind of shit just doesn't happen. I mean my nose started bleeding like a sieve right after but I didn't chalk it up to that immediately; I thought it was stress or something equally mundane. But I kind of hoped it was me...deep down I hoped it had been because of me because that had been the only time I'd ever had the upper hand. I hoped it was me because for once I felt strong and powerful and I wasn't afraid anymore. I hoped it was me because it felt _good_."

Margo has been quiet and statue-still since the story began, watching Eliot with her wide, dark eyes. She shifts just a little and clears her throat. "So what happened after that? I mean, did anyone ever question you about it?"

Eliot nods and shrugs a little. "Out of formality, really. The police questioned me right after the accident, asking if Logan had said anything before it happened, if I had said anything. They couldn't pin anything on me and there was nothing to suggest that it hadn't been anything other than just a tragic, unfortunate accident."

He finally dares to look at her and is somewhat surprised when she meets his gaze evenly. "I tried it again after that, on a much smaller scale, mind you. I tried moving little things like books, glasses of water, things like that. Never really had the success of that first time though. Probably for the best, really. My parents were already super critical of everything because I was gay so showing signs of telekinesis probably would have given them an aneurysm."

"So is that how did you got Invited?" Margo asks, her voice heavy and words slurring a little as she speaks.

Eliot nods. "I've always assumed it was, at least. I got a strange envelope one day mixed in with all the other college acceptance letters. I didn't recognize the seal or the crest but they said they wanted to set up an interview and then the next thing I knew I was on a bus to Portland. I should have known something strange was going on because the location was an empty warehouse that used to be a textile factory. Still, there was a light on inside and me, being the stupid, impressionable young man I was, I went inside."

He smirks slightly and shakes his head again. "Imagine my surprise when I stepped through the door and ended up on the lawn." He points off somewhere into the middle distance. "I stepped through those bushes right there. Strangest and most interesting day of my life."

Margo smiles a little and sits up straighter. "Well damn, I wish my story was that interesting. I didn't even know I had powers until I got here and took that stupid test."

It's Eliot's turn to tilt his head and look at her. "How did you find Brakebills?" He's nearly positive he's asked her this question before but the alcohol is making his memory fuzzy.

"A cat."

"A cat?"

Margo nods once. "A cat. That was how I found Brakebills. By following this ugly, scruffy looking cat."

Upon seeing Eliot's puzzled expression, Margo takes pity on him an elaborates. "It had been following me for about a week, popping up at my school, outside my house. It was just everywhere, like it was trying to get my attention or something. Then one day it was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk when I was walking home and it was just staring at me. Like _really_ staring. It was creepy and irritating and I was just so annoyed by it; I wanted it to leave me alone."

"I tried shooing it away, yelling at it, throwing trash it." Margo shakes her head. "It never even flinched. The only time it actually moved was when I walked toward it; it just turned and walked into the mouth of an alley, looking back at me like I was supposed to follow it." She laughs quietly but just as Eliot's had been before, there's no humor in it. "I'm not sure why I did. It wasn't part of the plan. But I followed it to the end of this alley and ended up on the backside of a florist shop. I went inside and suddenly I was," she gestures across the lawn with her still-bound hands. "Here."

Eliot frowns a little in confusion. "What plan?"

"Pardon?"

"You said it wasn't part of the plan. What plan?"

Something dark and unreadable crosses Margo's expression just then, taking on something of a physical form in the way her shoulders hunch slightly and her posture becomes more rigid. It's dangerous territory, whatever it is, and Eliot feels he should give her the option to back out if she needs to.

"Listen, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he says, trying to keep the conversation light and nonchalant. "I didn't mean to pry-"

"It's okay," Margo tells him, her voice clipped and still a little unsure. She glances at him and looks away just as quickly like she's not sure she can continue if she's looking directly at him. She takes a deep breath and lets it out as a long sigh. "I was planning to kill myself that day."

It's a shocking admission but Eliot keeps his expression carefully neutral. Margo had listened to his confession and accepted it in silence. It was his turn to return the favor.

Margo is silent for a second or so longer, swallowing thickly and trying to figure out how to start. "My parents had a lot of problems when I was growing up. Like, _a lot_ of problems. Shouldn't have come as any surprise that I ended up with a lot of problems too. The thing is, though, they never noticed I had problems, they just chalked it up to me being a moody teenager and figured I'd get over it eventually."

"My parents are lawyers in L.A., a city filled with failed actors and broken dreams. Their clients were mostly B and C list celebrities that found themselves neck deep in A list trouble; financial, drug charges, lawsuits, all of it. They spent so much of their time cleaning up everyone else's mess that they never realized they had one of their own."

Margo reaches down and grabs the bottle of scotch, taking a large gulp and cringing a little as she swallows. "I was a mess when I was in high school...I was self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, sex, pretty much anything I could find. I wasn't sleeping anymore either. That's something people sometimes don't tell you about depression; you just don't sleep anymore. You'll be more exhausted than you've ever felt in your life and still not be able to sleep. It's devastatingly ironic."

She smiles but it's thin and pale like watercolors washing down a sheet of paper. "I was just so numb, you know? Nothing seemed to matter, it was all so pointless and monotonous and boring. And I was _miserable_. I even told my parents I was depressed, that I was thinking about doing something crazy or hurting myself. And do you know what they told me?"

There's a flash of bitterness in her eyes and she changes her voice to sound equal parts condescending and patronizing. "Margo, it's just hormones. You'll get over it." She laughs then, a sharp, quick clap of sound that's a little startling in the late night silence. "I couldn't believe it! I was standing right on the edge of a cliff in front of them, literally _begging_ for help, and they just blew it off. They were so used to dealing with other people that they didn't know how to deal with me."

She smiles another bruised, humorless little smile. "That pretty much settled it for me. I couldn't see it getting any better, couldn't see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Everything just felt so pointless and I couldn't take it anymore."

"Have you ever read Tennyson?" she asks suddenly, the change in direction sharp and dramatic enough to give Eliot whiplash.

He's surprised by the question and it takes him a second to think about it. He'd been so engrossed in her story that he hardly even registered the abrupt segue until she was looking at him.

"Yes?" he answers after a moment's consideration. It really is hard to concentrate with the amount of alcohol swishing around in his system right now. "Back in high school I think."

Margo nods once in approval before continuing. " _The Lady of Shallot_ ," she says simply as if the title says it all. "We read it in school one day and I was just taken with it. I don't know why but for some reason it resonated with me. I wanted to be like that, to just float away from all my previous expectations and responsibilities. I wanted to slip into the water and float away forever."

"That afternoon I was walking home from school and going over my plan for like the hundredth time in my head. I was going to get home, have a couple glasses of wine, finish off a bottle of sleeping pills, and go outside to the pool. I even bought a dress for the occasion, that's how pathetic it was. Even with how exhausted I was with everything I still wanted to leave a pretty corpse."

She frowns off into the middle distance and shakes her head. "And then there was that cat. That stupid, scruffy cat that just kept showing up everywhere. I wasn't even mad about it anymore, I was just annoyed. I thought about turning and walking the other way or just kicking my way past it but I didn't. It just kept staring at me and when it went down that alley I followed it and ended up here."

"My first night at Brakebills I slept like a baby," Margo continues, a smile that's not quite as wan as the others tugging at the corner of her mouth. "It was the best sleep I'd gotten in years."

The night doesn't seem as cold anymore, the clouds not as heavy and oppressive. It was like a weight they weren't even aware of had been lifted off their shoulders. Eliot bumps his shoulder against Margo's lightly and offers her a small smile. "Guess we should drink to Brakebills, then."

He reaches down for the bottle of scotch and is surprised to see the ropes around his wrists slip off and tumble to the grass beside him. Margo's eyes widen in surprise and she looks at her own bound wrists, watching as the knots uncoil and loosen and finally fall to the ground as well. For a moment neither of them speak, they just sit there in mute surprise, staring at the limp loops of rope on the ground.

"Well that was-" Eliot starts but almost immediately he's cut off by a searing pain in the middle of his back. It's sharp and scorching like a white-hot coal being jammed right in between his shoulderblades. He gasps and crumples to the side in pain.

"Eliot!" Margo cries but then she's afflicted as well, stiffening in pain and gasping as the shockwave of it courses through her body.

Blinding currents of pain ripple through them like livewires attacking every muscle, organ, and nerve. Joints are stretched and bent, bones rearranged, bodies contorted. Eliot has just enough time to wonder if maybe someone had poisoned the scotch and it was just now hitting them but then another jolt of pain causes his mind to go blank and he loses his train of thought.

When he's able to think clearly again, he shifts and stands up but there's something wrong. The world seems much shorter and everything is in much sharper focus, the grass, the trees, the lawn. He looks over and sees a small, brownish-grey goose standing beside him where Margo had been only seconds before. He tries to say something but all that comes out is a strange honking sound. Oh God _dammit_ …

A small, ragtag V of geese honks and flaps and flies by overhead and he doesn't know why but he recognizes them as his classmates. Margo (or the goose Margo turned into) gives him an unreadable look and stretches out her wings, flapping them experimentally and catching a gust of wind that lifts her up into the air. She looks back at him, honks in encouragement, and flies up higher.

For lack of anything better to do (and the fact that flying actually does sound kind of fun), Eliot stretches his wings out too and flies up after her. He vows to figure out just what kind of trippy hallucinogenic someone slipped into their liquor later but he's way too drunk to deal with it right now. He lets the wind carry him up, falls in line with his other classmates-turned-geese, and flies off into the night.

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 **Thanks for reading guys! :D**


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